DNAngel

This was one of the first anime I watched all the way through. It’s one of my favorites. Now I know I say that about a lot of the anime I’ve featured, but I really mean it this time.

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DNAngel follows a 14 year old named Daisuke through his not-so-normal life. Daisuke is your average kid, he goes to school, he has friends and he has a crush. On his 14th birthday he confessed his love to the girl of his dreams and she rejected him. Needless to say the day wasn’t the best day but when the sun went down things turned around. I hate to use the word “transform” but that’s the best word for what happens to Daisuke. His mother explains to him that the men in the Niwa family have all turned into the Phantom thief Dark when they experience feelings of love. The only way for Daisuke to turn back into himself is to steal art pieces created by the Hikari family. If he can do that and also win the heart of the “Sacred Maiden” he can return to himself for good.

I have to talk about Dark seeing how he is Daisuke’s other half. Dark appears in every male of the Niwa family when they turn 14 and it’s been this way for the past 300 years. In the anime and manga, dark has been dormant for the past 40 years and he is ready to stretch his wings. As I said before this thief steals the art works of the Hikari family, but the reason he steals them is to seal up the powers that have been leaking out of them and causing problems throughout the town.

They may share a body but Daisuke and Dark don’t always get along, one more than one occasion they will bicker over missions and the girls that have captured their hearts. Even though this is true Dark genially cares for is “host” limiting his magical uses to spare Daisuke additional pain. Think of their relationship as that of an older and younger brother team.

Standing between this thieving team and their target is Satoshi Hiwatari. He is the same age as Daisuke and a fellow classmate, but this guy graduated from high school by age 8 and had a college degree by the time he was 13. If his so smart why is he still going to school? To get closer to Daisuke, whom he knows to be Dark’s alter ego, of course. Satoshi is a decedent of the Hikari family, the same family that is having it’s art works stolen. His sole focus in life is capturing Dark at all costs.

If Satoshi is Daisuke’s opposite then the spirit that lives inside Satoshi is the opposite of Dark. His name is Krad and he is everyone’s worst enemy. Like Dark, Krad lives within the body of his host, but where Dark tries to keep Daisuke safe, Krad cares nothing for the body he shares. He isn’t limited to feeling of love and will attempt to seize control of the shared body whenever he feels Satoshi weakening. He will use as much magical energy as he can summon and manifest his own pair of wings from Satoshi’s back. Once Krad is tamed again there will be two thin injuries on Satoshi’s back where the wings were. The reason Satoshi wants to capture Dark so bad is to seal both him and Krad away, thus ending his pain and saving his life.

Alright so we now have the protagonist and antagonist we can talk about the other colorful characters that call this anime home. I’ve mentioned the Scared Maiden before, so let’s start with them. The Twin Harada sisters make the love portion of this anime interesting.

Starting with the younger sister, Risa was the sister that Daisuke confessed his feeling to and was rejected. At the start of the story she rejects him because he is too “normal” rationalizing that she needs to have the perfect boyfriend to compete with her older sister. She finds that perfect guy in Daisuke’s alter ego Dark and falls head over heels for him. As the anime goes on Risa starts to take more and more risks to see Dark, even going as far to follow him while he’s on a heist. In the anime Dark doesn’t return her feelings saying that he only plays along because she reminds him of someone he once knew. The story is a little different in the manga but I won’t say too much on that. Out of the twins Risa is the slightly spoiled, innocent and more girly girl than her sister. The being a girly girl doesn’t change but as the anime goes on Risa matures into a fine young lady.

Riku is the older sister. She is the typical athletic tomboy character, who is more down-to-earth than her sister. At first Riku just sees Daisuke as just a friend but after her sister rejects him; she starts to see him as an OK guy. In the anime she is uncertain how she feels about Daisuke, but when it comes to Dark she is not his biggest fan. After his first heist Dark took cover near the Harada household and Riku caught him. To stop her from screaming Dark kissed her. She resents this believing that Dark stole her first kiss.

There are more characters that appear and I could spend forever talking about them, but that wouldn’t leave anything for you to explore.

The sad thing about this anime is that it’s only 26 episodes long. Compared to some, that is not a long running time and I do feel that this story is wrapped up very quickly in the anime.There was so much more that they could have played with seeing how the manga is still going on and no decision has been made on which girl gets the Dark Daisuke duo.